Origin of a Classic: Tunnel of Fudge

With its rich, gooey center, it’s no surprise that the Tunnel of Fudge cake rose to prominence. Though it didn’t win first place at the Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest in 1966—it came in second place—Ella Helfrich’s chocolaty creation took over the hearts and kitchens of bakers across the United States.

The Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest, originally titled the Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest, started in 1949 as a way for the Pillsbury family to celebrate the company’s 80th birthday and to promote its brand of flour. Bakers from all over the nation submitted their recipes, but just 100 lucky bakers were selected for a chance to win $25,000—equivalent to more than $315,000 today! The bakers were flown to New York City to compete at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. This was not an easy feat, since in 1949, the hotel did not have the ability to sustain 100 ovens and baking stations and was forced to tap into the city subway’s electrical system to power the ovens. The contest was so highly anticipated that even former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was in attendance to help with the proceedings and to hand out awards at the end. The Bake-Off® was an immense success, becoming an annual event, drawing in followers from around the country, each vying for their chance to win the cash prize or simply wanting to bake the winning recipe. At the 1966 Bake-Off®, one contestant would come in second place, but her recipe would forever live on in cookbooks and recipe cards by bakers everywhere.

Ella Helfrich, a home baker from Texas, entered the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest armed with her Bundt pan and a recipe that would become so popular that the first-place winner would be forgotten. The walnut-studded cake was rich and chocolaty and, most importantly, had a river of fudge running through the center. With no obvious reason for the fudgy center as well as the unique pan in which Helfrich baked the cake, the Tunnel of Fudge was a mystery that people were all too eager to explore. Soon after the winners were announced, Pillsbury received more than 200,000 letters requesting Ella’s recipe and information about the pan she used.

At the time, Bundt pans were not common pieces of bakeware. In fact, the word “Bundt” was not used until after the founding of Nordic Ware and the inception of the Bundt pan. Started in 1946 by Dotty and Dave Dalquist in Minnesota, Nordic Ware began selling Scandinavian cookware out of the young couple’s basement. The Bundt pan came into being as a lightweight aluminum counterpart to a cast-iron gugelhupf pan. (Gugelhupf, or kugelhopf, is a German yeasted cake also known as bundkuchen.) The pan is characterized by its tube-like shape that allows for even baking, as well as the fluted edges that give the cake an elegant flair and make it easy to cut and serve. Ella and her creative cake launched this stylish pan into stardom, and the Bundt pan soon became a staple of every baker’s kitchen. The Dalquists received thousands of requests for their pan after the Bake-Off® competition and had to keep their factory running 24 hours a day to keep up with the flood of orders.

Pillsbury kept Ella’s original recipe unchanged until the mid-1980s, when one of its key ingredients, Double Dutch Frosting Mix, was discontinued. No one could re-create the recipe without it, and fans of Ella’s cake were angry. Pillsbury received letters of complaint until the company updated the recipe to include a substitution using confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder, though some say it didn’t yield the same result as the original version. The discontinuating of the frosting mix both forced and encouraged bakers to give the cake their own personal flair, though creating the fudge inside was a difficult task—the cake requires precision and following every step exactly as is written. Any misstep could result in a collapsed or fudge-less cake.

The magic of the cake lies in its oozy center, which requires an almost two-hour cooling time in the pan before being turned out onto a cooling rack. This allows the walls of the cake around the tunnel to solidify and hold the fudge inside. If the cake is turned out of the pan too soon, the walls will split open, leaving you with a collapsed pile of fudge. The cake batter is similar to a brownie batter, with a higher amount of fat and sugar than flour when compared to a standard cake; this means that it won’t bake all the way through, leaving you with a delicious gooey middle. Another key aspect of the cake is that the nuts help create the structure of the tunnel—the dense cake would otherwise collapse in on itself because the soft interior is unable to support its own weight.

The lasting effect of Ella’s iconic Tunnel of Fudge is more than simply increasing sales at Nordic Ware and high demand for her recipe. Nordic Ware and Pillsbury collaborated on a boxed cake mix made exclusively for Bundt pans. With all the flavors any home baker could want, the boxed mixes remained popular well into the 1990s. It’s not easy to find these packaged Bundt cake mixes on grocery store shelves today, but they are still being sold online.

In true Bake from Scratch fashion, we’ve taken this classic cake and made it our own. Rather than using walnuts, we’ve swapped them out for pecans. Their distinct flavor helps them stand out from the richness of the cake. Ella herself was rumored to prefer pecans, though her original recipe contained walnuts. When Pillsbury updated her recipe, they also included a thick chocolate glaze on top of the cake. Our Dulce de Leche Glaze adds a degree of elegance, with flecks of vanilla bean seeds glinting throughout. Our Tunnel of Fudge pays homage to history of the cake, from the pan to the nut garnish on top, yet it’s a modern classic that will continue to be loved for generations to come.

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